The Prince of Thieves
by George Dragonwings
Summary: Has someone ever stolen your heart? It's a wonderful, gut-wrenching feeling isn't it? Especially when you didn't see it coming.


How hard was it really to get to sleep? This was getting ridiculous! Harry turned to his side, and looked at his wizard alarm clock, which was snoring—the annoyingly cheery numbers read two in the morning. Ugh. Harry grunted, exasperated, and threw himself on his back.

Who was he kidding? He knew why he couldn't sleep. His mind wouldn't stop—it hadn't stopped turning and winding since three nights ago. He could barely concentrate in any of his classes, he wasn't sleeping, and he was sure that Hermione and Ron were starting to notice and get worried. It just seemed like the world seemed a little dull after that night—muted.

'_Stop it'_ he told himself. '_I'm fine'_.

But he wasn't fine. He knew he wasn't. He just didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to figure out all the complications and what it all meant. But even if he didn't want to think about it, the memories came rushing back…

* * *

It was late, and he was exhausted, but he couldn't sleep. His muscles kept twitching and his mind kept going—he felt like he needed to be somewhere. He was getting frustrated and jealous of his roommates snoring peacefully, while he hadn't slept a wink. So, he gave up trying to sleep—he threw off his covers, rummaged through the trunk and found his invisibility cloak, his map, and his broomstick. He figured that he might as well fly around a bit. Shoving on his shoes and glasses, he left the Gryffindor tower and slowly made his way to the Quidditch patch.

When he got to the field though, he was shocked to see that there was already someone there; the figure was leaning against a Quidditch post, holding his broomstick, and he looked exhausted. He had platinum blonde hair, and an air of respect around him, even with the dark smudges under his eyes. Draco Malfoy.

Something was different tonight, Harry knew it. Maybe it was the way the other boy was standing, or the way his head was hanging low, or maybe it was something else altogether, but Harry didn't feel animosity towards his 'enemy' this night. For some reason, he felt a type of comradeship tonight. _Was that weird? _Harry thought. And when Draco looked up and saw Harry, the look in his face said that he thought the same thing.

Harry walked up to the post with a tired look in his eyes, and stood out of hitting distance from the boy. Draco just eyed him, a little suspiciously.

Harry was the one to talk first. "What are you doing here?" Draco raised his eyebrows then glanced at his broom, and back at Harry. "The same thing that you're doing" said Draco, with a slight smirk. The smirk was even a little friendlier, wasn't it?

Harry was looking down at his shoelaces, and simply nodded his head.

Draco snorted, and Harry glanced back up.

"So," Draco said with his eyebrows raised, "Do you want your ass kicked in a seeker match?"

Harry simply smiled.

Draco smirked and pulled a snitch out of his pocket. They waited a minute before mounting their broomsticks and took off. It was surprisingly a decent time; their only goal was to catch to snitch and distract themselves from the pressures of teenage life. They even laughed a little bit together. Draco caught the first one, which seemed to loosen him up even more, and pretty soon they lost track of the score, and the time.

Harry noticed that Draco looked more distracted than usual, well, atleast not as guarded as he usually was. He couldn't remember a time seeing Draco smile a real smile before, but at the same time, it wasn't a real one—it was the smile of someone who had more on their mind and wasn't really paying any attention to what was _really_ going on around him.

It was about 4 in the morning, and both boys were getting exhausted. Draco was attempting to do a simple barrel roll to wake him up a little bit more when somehow his grip loosened… he suddenly couldn't hold onto his broom anymore. Harry was on the other end of the field, and when he saw Draco falling to the ground from thirty feet in the air, he started flying as fast as he could.

He didn't even know what he was doing, only that he had to make sure Draco and the ground didn't meet. Draco wasn't even screaming or moving, he looked to be unconscious, but that didn't matter to Harry.

Harry wasn't the youngest seeker in a century for no reason; he caught Draco five feet from the ground—but he wasn't ready for the weight and his broomstick nose-dived into the ground and threw Draco and Harry off of it. They tumbled into a heap of limbs.

"ugh", Harry said, holding his head.

"What the fuck?!" Draco said. Harry looked down and realized he was practically laying on top of an extremely angry looking Draco. His eyes looked like they were frozen with hatred. Harry quickly got up of him, and held his hand outward to help Draco up. Draco looked at his hand condescendingly and struggled up on his own.

"What?"

"What the fuck? Why were laying on top of me?"

Harry looked around, probably for some sense (which wasn't present at the moment), "umm, you fell…"

"I what?"

"You fell" Harry had his eyebrows raised, wondering if Draco hit his head in the fall. "Weren't you there?"

"Malfoys don't fall off their broomsticks"

"Well then what do you call it? Skydiving?"

"That still doesn't explain why you were on top of me!"

"I just saved your life and that's all you can think about!?"

"Saved my life?! You were fondling me!" Draco was clearly looking more pissed off than Harry had ever seen him. Usually Malfoy always kept his head, coldly so, while Harry and Ron were the one's shouting. .

Draco crossed his arms. "You know what I think?" Draco said condescendingly "I think you're a queer, and you've been waiting for your chance to touch me all night!"

Harry was dumbfounded. There was just no way to get around this without getting into trouble, and he was having such a good time just a few minutes ago (he realized this with surprise). And he was really quite tired. So he did what came naturally; he asked "Malfoy, are you alright?"

The other boy's head cocked to one side, and his eyebrows furrowed, showing clear signs that he was not expecting this. He opened his mouth to say something, probably something downright cruel, then stopped. Malfoy seemed to be having trouble gathering his thoughts, something that Harry had never seen before. Then, with no precedence, he suddenly turned on his heel and stomped back to the castle.

Harry was too tired to think about what had just happened between them, and why Malfoy was acting so funny. He took a deep breath, turned around to pick up his broom, and noticed that Malfoy had left his in the field. It was a Firebolt 2, no doubt expensive, and Harry was sure that one of the students would try to steal it. So he picked up Malfoy's too, and trudged back up the castle.

* * *

Harry rolled over again. _Why am I thinking so much about this? _


End file.
